Brown is defense against Legislature

Budget spends more, but relieves Republicans

Gov. Jerry Brown held court at San Diego City Hall as part of a three-city tour Thursday to unveil his proposed 2014-15 budget. He started in Sacramento and ended up in Los Angeles after stopping here.
— John Gibbins

Gov. Jerry Brown held court at San Diego City Hall as part of a three-city tour Thursday to unveil his proposed 2014-15 budget. He started in Sacramento and ended up in Los Angeles after stopping here.
— John Gibbins

SACRAMENTO  Gov. Jerry Brown has spent a good bit of the last year channeling his infrastructure-building father, Pat Brown, as he fixates on building a $68-billion high-speed rail system and a tunnel project that would carry water underneath the Delta.

But as he unveiled the 2014-15 budget on Thursday, Brown at times sounded less like his former-governor dad and more like Pat’s Republican successors. The new budget proposal would hike spending, for sure, but it also diverts significant dollars toward paying off the state’s “wall of debt” from budgetary borrowing.

It holds the line on new taxes, calls for a beefed-up “rainy day fund” ballot measure and resists spending programs that could later put the state in a bind.

In reality, no one is going to portray Brown as the reincarnation of Ronald Reagan – though Reagan did, as governor, also tout surpluses after passing a tax increase – but one can sense relief from GOP leaders and even a little frustration from Brown’s fellow Democrats.

At the Capitol, an animated Brown pointed to a large bar chart with big red deficit bars for many past years and a little black surplus bar representing the projected surplus for next year. “Now some people would say because we have this little black mark there, that we should go on a spending binge,” he said. “I don’t agree with that.” When a reporter asked him about large surpluses, the governor halted him, then pointed to the tiny bar indicating the surplus.

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Brown then grabbed another chart showing the volatility of California’s capital-gains-dependent revenues and warned against making long-term spending commitments and then finding ourselves in a hole when the revenue drops. Before the budget unveiling, Democratic legislators rallied support for a costly new universal preschool program – something pointedly not included in the Brown budget.

On the austere side, the budget would pay off $11 billion in debt and place $1.6 billion in that reserve fund. When asked about a proposal to impose a 10-percent severance tax on oil development, Brown said this isn’t the time to consider new taxes of any sort. He also emphasized that Prop. 30’s tax hikes “will be temporary.”

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On the not-so-austere side, Brown avoids handling a huge strain – the additional $4.5 billion a year that the California State Teachers’ Retirement System needs to stay solvent. Brown said he needs to build consensus for a solution, but it’s his most flagrant punt. He also isn't seriously addressing pension liabilities or those in the Unemployment Insurance fund. There’s no real push for saving money by reforming pensions and other government programs.

In his most controversial move, the governor wants to divert money from the cap-and-trade fund – money raised from businesses that buy emission credits – toward his increasingly desperate efforts to fund a speedy rail line that courts have halted until enough funds are identified to build the initial segment. He also boosts funding for education, health care and other programs.